Recently in Poetry Category

Edited: 12/24/07 based on insightful suggestions.

An idea--
political, religious, or otherwise.

No sense putting faith in it, it’s just a habit.
No sense saying it, you don’t really believe it.
No sense buying it, it’s not worth much.
No sense selling it, no one’s buying.
No sense admitting it, everyone does it.
No sense hiding it, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
No sense explaining it, we got it the first time.
No sense ignoring it, it won’t go away.
No sense accepting it, you don’t know where it’s been.
No sense killing for it, no one wants it that bad.
No sense exalting it, it’s essentially meaningless.

No sense giving up on it, a Man’s got to do something.

This is a sestina. Six words repeated throughout six stanzas, capped by an envoi of three lines that uses all six words. The order of the words changes according to a set pattern throughout the stanzas. It's by far the most difficult form of poetry I've had to write this semester. This is rough and repetitious. Which is why I'm not a poet.

At an age when they’re just eyes,
Sucking up the world; at once following
The dog through the house and crashing
Into a pile of left-out toys. They keep
Your attention from wandering, the better
To appreciate them in that vaporous moment.

I can’t say I’ve ever overlooked those moments.
The glow in their eyes when they sit,
Head resting on my chest, wanting better
Expressions while reading a book; following
The words with my finger; keeping time
With the rhyme when the dodgeits crash.

The on/off switch is broken. They crash
Into sleep the moment they lie (or are laid)
Down. But they keep playing in dreams.
Excitement in sleep flutters their eyelids.
Mom follows the trail of dolls and clothes
Through the house. What could be better?

Some say it’s better to pretend they don’t exist.
That the stock market could crash and
Put us out of work. We could follow our dreams
And at the moment we reach them, fail.
The eyelids still flutter and the child
Keeps dreaming and so do we.

To have and to hold. To keep and to cherish.
We once said no better words to each other.
Eyes locked together as we ourselves would be.
The stock market did crash and our stomachs
Stayed empty. At the moment we reached for
Our dreams to follow them, they were ghosts.

To follow our dreams so our children can dream
Unfettered and in safety. To keep and to cherish
Until that moment when we realize that it’s
Not a better place for us that we make,
But for them. The crashing and noise,
The eyes closed in sleep. The dreams, ghosts.

My eyes follow the child through the room.
She crashes over toys. Again. I keep picking
Them up. A better moment, though ghostly, doesn’t exist.

A little more revision and breaking the sonnet visually into its constituent quatrains and couplet.

Damn words won't sit still.
Keep moving around on me.
       sit
I put them in one spot
Now, stay where I put you!
              still

They end up getting themselves
Mixed up in odd combinations
That don't make sense any.
I didn't put them there.

They moved around in secret.
       (sneak)       (sneak)       sit
Made a mess out of everything.
Beat the hell out of them
       Sit still!
They just cry (sniff) like a whiny-baby. (sniff)

I pick them up and hug them
And put them back where I had them.

So I re-worked my ballad a little bit. Trying to make it more of a ballad:

Who walks into a bar?
Guy fatsky and guy thinsky

Thin one gets a martini,

Guy fatsky orders whiskey.

Who is it got brains?
Asks guy fatsky. You?

They say it ain't me

Guess it must be you.

Guy thinksy: You're ignorant.
Only the enlightened deserve

To have any substantial say.

But guy fatsky holds brains in reserve.

Who is the smarter?
The flinger or the stung?

I guess it all depends

On who it is gets hung.

The flinger gets hung
(or hangs himself).

Not the stung.

Speaking figuratively, of course.

Note: For this exercise, I had to take the fourteen ending words of a Shakespearean sonnet from our textbook and reuse them in a sonnet of our own. Turns out it's really, really difficult to create something that makes any kind of sense when you're forced to reuse another poet's words at the end of your lines.

Mosquitoes the hammer, an anvil the sun.
I between them, my hatless, bald head, red.

Miserable and lathered: mare sorrel, colt dun.

Chasing a bee, the youngster flicks his long head.

Mare comes near me, takes the hay with a bite.

Humidity slaps me and leaves red on my cheeks.

Her colt bounds toward us. A mother's delight

For any mother but her. I dig out the treats.

Someone should see this. But no one would know

What to make of a mother who hates the sound

Of her son coming near. I turn and I go.

Dry crunch under feet. Desiccated ground.

I force them to be together. The nuzzles are rare.

To what can this mother's disdain compare?

Round table, iron pedestal
on a sidewalk, in the sun.

A porcelain cup.

Next to that, a vase

nearly half full of water

which disgorges a lavender Hibiscus.

The man at the table

sips karkade from the cup.

He sweats beneath a hat

and a cream, cotton suit.

He waits on the son of a Sheik.

Another half-hour

and the son arrives.

The man doesn’t stand up.

He nods and says only: “tomorrow.”

Six English guns

against the Germans and the Turks.

From the fingers of the Nile

to the wharf at Taif

then north to Damascus.

The man finishes his tea

and makes ready to leave.

He snaps the flower from the stalk

and pokes the end in his lapel.

The man with the flower walks away.